Often as patients leave the hospital after a stay, they stop at the pharmacy to pick up medications prescribed for their recovery. Now at Eskenazi Health, they can stop by the hospital’s new market to pick up nutritious, healthy food to bring home with them. The Fresh for You […]
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Often as patients leave the hospital after a stay, they stop at the pharmacy to pick up medications prescribed for their recovery. Now at Eskenazi Health, they can stop by the hospital’s new market to pick up nutritious, healthy food to bring home with them.
The Fresh for You Market will cater not just to patients but also staff and anyone else who wants to shop there. In addition, Eskenazi health workers will be able to provide patients at risk of food insecurity with vouchers for purchases.
“A lot of our patients are living in food deserts. They’re doing their grocery shopping in a convenience store, some place that doesn’t provide them access to a lot of these food options,” said Seth Grant, Eskenazi’s director of food strategy and retail operations. “We’re really looking to break down the barriers that contribute to food insecurity.”
The market will be housed in the sunlit former home of the Duo’s eatery on the Basile Pavilion in front of the hospital. The low-slung, sunlit rectangular building features 1,450 square feet that still contains the kitchen from its former occupant.
Fresh for You will also host different local chefs, who will rotate through and offer take-out lunches and grab-and-go meals for purchase. It is open from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The market grows out of an initiative the hospital started four years ago, running a food pantry of sorts in a small space outside the cafeteria. That pantry had a small selection of healthy options, such as fresh fruit and vegetables and lower sodium canned goods, for patients and staff to stock up quickly.
Eskenazi clinic staff routinely screen patients for food insecurity. Those identified through this screening then receive a voucher to shop in the market with only the cashier the wiser about who does and who does not require assistance.
As far as Grant and his colleagues know, Eskenazi’s market/food pantry hybrid is the only hospital-run entity of its sort.
Partnering with Gleaners Food Bank of lndiana, Eskenazi will be able to purchase the food at a lower priced than typical, resell it at a competitive price, and then transform any profits into vouchers for those in need, Grant said.
Anyone is welcome to shop there.
“Our hope is that it will be a resource to the entire neighborhood,” said Dr. Deanna Reinoso, medical director of social determinants of health at Eskenazi Health.
Such resources can make the difference between better or poorer health, experts agree. Good nutrition can help stave off chronic diseases such as diabetes or hypertension and improve one’s prognosis if one develops such a condition. Malnutrition may also lead children to exhibit cognitive delays, said Reinoso, a pediatrician.
Under a pilot program that Eskenazi ran to test the food pantry concept, patients who screened positive for food insecurity received a $30 voucher and could go directly from their appointment to the pantry to shop. About 30% of patients screened in certain Eskenazi clinics were not food secure.
While a $30 voucher may not go far, it will help tide people over until Eskenazi staffers could help identify other resources to feed that patient and his or her family, Reinoso said.
In addition, the market will expose shoppers to foods they might not have encountered in other places, as veggie spirals that can substitute for noodles.
Eskenazi staff also took into account feedback about challenges their patients face while shopping. For instance, people on a budget said they do not like buying fruit and vegetables by the pound because they do not know how much they will wind up spending. So at the market, fruit and vegetables are marked with a set price, said Amy Carter, an Eskenzi dietitian.
Once this location is up and running, Eskenazi may look into expanding the model to other clinics or starting a mobile market to bring fresh healthy food into food deserts.
“This will not be the end of the road for how the Fresh for You market will evolve,” Grant said. “The hope is that we will continue to expand on this operation, not only at Eskenazi Health but also throughout the city.”
Contact IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at shari.rudavsky@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter: @srudavsky.
